PunditMom » Equal Payhttp://www.punditmom.com
Having an opinion never goes out of style.Wed, 05 Jun 2013 19:07:55 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=3.9.3A New President Obama? Thoughts on State of the Union 2013http://www.punditmom.com/2013/02/a-new-president-obama-thoughts-on-state-of-the-union-2013
http://www.punditmom.com/2013/02/a-new-president-obama-thoughts-on-state-of-the-union-2013#commentsThu, 14 Feb 2013 16:12:01 +0000http://www.punditmom.com/?p=11484

Image via WhiteHouse.gov/Official White House Photo by Pete Souza

For years, I’ve had a pet peeve with President Obama. I knew he wasn’t as progressive as many Democrats thought he was in 2008. Don’t get me wrong — I …

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Image via WhiteHouse.gov/Official White House Photo by Pete Souza

For years, I’ve had a pet peeve with President Obama. I knew he wasn’t as progressive as many Democrats thought he was in 2008. Don’t get me wrong — I voted for Barack Obama in 2008 ad 2012. But many people the first time around thought he was going to be the champion of so many progressive causes that had been swept under the rug during the George W. Bush era.

Maybe he would have been more willing to take on more social issues if he’d had a Congress that was a little less obstructionist, but I’m not convinced he would have taken on the issues that I hoped he would tackle — passing the Paycheck Fairness Act, increasing the minimum wage, doing something to bring people out of poverty and making sure all kids have the same educational start.

I know. I’m a dreamer.

But in the President’s latest State of the Union address, much of what he talked about was political music to my ears. Obama has received a lot of praise for signing the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act into law as one of his first official acts. And that was a big deal, but I never appreciated how the administration touted the Ledbetter Act as creating a law that would ensure that women would get equal pay for equal work — it doesn’t, no matter how much the administration has tried to finesse it. And they have. But Ledbetter only gives employees — both men and women — an extended amount of time to sue for back pay and discrimination once it’s discovered; it’s not a guarantee that men and women doing the same job will get the same pay.

As for poverty, I’m sad that it’s taken the President this long to stand up for the importance of the minimum wage — not that $9 an hour is such a wonderful salary, but it’s significantly better than $7.25 that it is now, and has been since 2009. Anyone who knows anything about the story in the book Nickled and Dimed, knows that.

So what’s gotten into President Obama? One obvious factor is that he doesn’t have to worry about re-election anymore, so that frees him up to just put it all out there on the table. I don’t hold any notion that everything he proposed in #SOTU2013, as they called it on Twitter, will become legislation that can make its way though Congress without the Republican leadership throwing more roadblocks into the path of progress.

But as a girl who’s proudly and unabashedly liberal, who feels that the federal government does have some role to play in making sure that people are paid a fair and livable wage, President Obama’s remarks restored a little bit of the faith I had lost in him during his first term.

Realistically, I know some decisions will have to be made about which proposals live and which ones will die on Capitol Hill. But at least the President showed us a little of that liberal he kept in the political closet for the last four years.

]]>http://www.punditmom.com/2013/02/a-new-president-obama-thoughts-on-state-of-the-union-2013/feed1You’re More Than a Guest in the First Lady’s Seating Boxhttp://www.punditmom.com/2013/02/youre-more-than-a-guest-in-the-first-ladys-seating-box
http://www.punditmom.com/2013/02/youre-more-than-a-guest-in-the-first-ladys-seating-box#commentsTue, 12 Feb 2013 18:38:36 +0000http://www.punditmom.com/?p=11478The White House just released the list of guests who will be joining Michelle Obama in the traditional First Lady’s Seating Box for the State of the Union address. There are always some Americans invited whose stories are personally compelling …]]>The White House just released the list of guests who will be joining Michelle Obama in the traditional First Lady’s Seating Box for the State of the Union address. There are always some Americans invited whose stories are personally compelling and add something along the lines of what sportscasters call “color commentary” for an event. But this year’s groups of invitees sheds light on what President Obama has on his mind for his second term, whether he specifically talks about certain things in his speech or not.

It had already been announced that the parents of Hadiya Pendleton, the teen who appeared in the recent presidential inauguration parade, and who was shot and killed in Chicago days later, would be seated with the First Lady. But see if you can figure out the Obama Administration’s priorities for his second term from the invitation list, that includes:

1. A lead instructor for the Female Engagement Team that has been deployed to Afghanistan for several years to connect female soldiers with Afghani women in hopes that women helping women could lead to a significant shift in progress, and ultimately withdrawl of armed services, from that part of the world.

2. The student winner of the Intel Intelligence Science and Engineering Fair who created a new method to detect pancreatic cancer.

3. The first Latina mayor of Avondale, Arizona.

4. The secretary at a grocery store chain who was the victim of pay and job discrimination, who was told that the job a salesperson for the company was too dangerous and that she would not be a good mother if she were traveling to meet with customers.

5. The first police officer to arrive at the Sikh temple shooting in Oak Creek, Wisconsin last August.

6. A first grade teachers from Sandy Hook Elementary School.

7. An Affordable Care Act beneficiary who would have lost health insurance coverage at age 21 due to a pre-existing chronic illness.

8. An early childhood educator from Oklahoma who has written curricula for Head Start programs and trained Head Start teachers.

There are others who will be joining Michelle Obama and Jill Biden for the President’s speech. But it doesn’t take a lot of analysis to see how the second term agenda will be focused — fair pay, gun control, early childhood education, STEM education, women in the military, the Latino community, and more.

Who do you think the Obamas should have invited to sit with the First Lady at the State of the Union as an indication of a presidential priority?

]]>http://www.punditmom.com/2013/02/youre-more-than-a-guest-in-the-first-ladys-seating-box/feed3I’m Ready for Equal Pay. How About You?http://www.punditmom.com/2012/04/im-ready-for-equal-pay-how-about-you
http://www.punditmom.com/2012/04/im-ready-for-equal-pay-how-about-you#commentsTue, 17 Apr 2012 18:45:20 +0000http://www.punditmom.com/?p=9962When I was first starting out as a young journalist, I believed there was no question that I would get paid the same salary as men doing the same job. After all, we’d come a long way, right? Women were …]]>When I was first starting out as a young journalist, I believed there was no question that I would get paid the same salary as men doing the same job. After all, we’d come a long way, right? Women were not just “weather girls” anymore; we were becoming investigative journalists and sports anchors and producers. I thought my NOW button that proclaimed “59 cents” was a quaint relic of the past.

I learned the hard way that I wasn’t getting paid anywhere near what those newsroom guys were making. Hey, I was single and some of those men had families to support, said the news directors who thought they were justified in paying lower wages to us “girls.”

I sometimes use my experiences as PunditGirl’s mother as a lens through which to view issues that are important to me. But PunditGirl isn’t the only daughter in my life. I also have two adult step-daughters. They don’t need …

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I sometimes use my experiences as PunditGirl’s mother as a lens through which to view issues that are important to me. But PunditGirl isn’t the only daughter in my life. I also have two adult step-daughters. They don’t need me much at this stage of the game — they’re women with their own professional lives and relationships and, yes, one of them is married with a toddler of her own — another girl.

The presence of three different generations of girls in my life colors how I view this day — Women’s Equality Day — that many are celebrating. And it’s not a happy color. I was tempted not to write anything about Women’s Equality Day because, in all honesty, I can’t think about it without laughing and crying at the same time.

Equality? We’re not even close.

Sure, we’ve come a long way, as the saying goes, but that doesn’t acknowledge just how far we still have to go for anything resembling true equality for women in America. President Obama issued a proclamation yesterday stating that although women have achieved a lot in terms of gaining the vote and participating in politics that “disparities remain.”

So how does he explain to his daughters and mine why more isn’t being done to fix that once and for all?

Nothing close to equal pay for equal work exists for women. While the president did sign the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, he and his administration have dragged their feet on making the Paycheck Fairness Act — one that would mandate equal pay — a priority, notwithstanding their continued promises to do so. Ledbetter only gives women (and men) additional rights to sue for back pay and benefits after they find out they’ve been discriminated against. Various commissions and committees established to promote, study or advance the idea of paying people fairly and equally for the same work only delay real change.

Women are still fighting to be treated equally and fairly in the workplace when it comes to getting paid sick days and paid family leave for the birth or adoption of a child or to care for other family members. In order to have flexibility in some jobs to manage the work/life balance dance, there are women who agree to be paid only 80 percent of full wages, even though they’re really working 120 percent, putting in time at home once the kids are in bed, just to get the scheduling flexibility they need without the fear of losing their job.

Women are still fighting for fair treatment when it comes to health care — some men on Capitol Hill still believe that health insurance shouldn’t have to cover maternity benefits, and coverage for injuries from domestic violence incidents can still be denied under some policies pre-existing condition language.

Women are still less than 20 percent of Congress, women publish less than 20 percent of op-eds in major newspapers, and women are still significantly less than half of governors, as well as law firm and accounting firm partners. Women might make up close to 50 percent of the workforce these days, but that is hardly the equality we’ve been looking for or deserve.

So how do I explain all that to my daughters and, yes, to my granddaughter when she’s old enough to understand? My stepdaughters are adults and know that things are the way they are. But PunditGirl, as she enters middle school, still believes the story we tell all our kids — that boys and girls can do the exact same things if they want. Which is true in a limited way. We as parents don’t have the nerve to tell our daughters that they’ll only get paid three-quarters of what the boys make. We conveniently leave out the part that as girls they will face obstacles, barriers and ceilings, both glass and cement, that I had assumed in my girlhood we wouldn’t have to worry about anymore in the 21st century.

In his proclamation, President Obama stated:

Women’s rights are ultimately human rights, and the march for equality will not end until full parity and equal opportunity are attained in every State and workplace across our Nation. It remains our responsibility to ensure that the principles of justice and equality apply to all Americans, regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability, or socioeconomic status. If we stay true to our founding ideals and the example of those who insisted upon nothing less than full equality, we can and will perpetuate the line of progress that runs throughout our Nation’s history for generations to come.

Yes, I agree with all of that and to have the President of the United States acknowledge that women’s rights are human rights is crucial to making any strides for true equality. But it’s time for the President and others who use these words to take actions that make them a reality.

So forgive me for not inviting you all over for a Women’s Equality Day celebration. I’ll save my party for the day when the idea of a governmental commemoration devoted to women’s equality is as ridiculously outdated as those 1980′s power suits with the big shoulder pads they said I had to wear to be viewed as “equal” to my male colleagues.

Image by Joanne Bamberger. All rights reserved.

]]>http://www.punditmom.com/2011/08/dont-know-what-to-tell-my-daughters-on-womens-equality-day/feed2Supreme Court Tells Women to Shut Up and Go Home — Againhttp://www.punditmom.com/2011/06/supreme-court-tells-women-to-shut-up-and-go-home-again
http://www.punditmom.com/2011/06/supreme-court-tells-women-to-shut-up-and-go-home-again#commentsTue, 21 Jun 2011 17:00:20 +0000http://www.punditmom.com/?p=8027The Supreme Court has told one and a half million women who work at Wal-mart, in essence, be grateful you have jobs even if you make less money and get promoted less than men. Now, shut up and go home.…]]>The Supreme Court has told one and a half million women who work at Wal-mart, in essence, be grateful you have jobs even if you make less money and get promoted less than men. Now, shut up and go home.

I used a similar phrase a short time ago when SCOTUS declined to hear the appeal of the Texas cheerleader who was dismissed from her high school squad for refusing to cheer for the student who had allegedly raped her. The denial of SCOTUS upheld the message sent by the lower courts — as a cheerleader, you’re a hand-picked mouthpiece for the school’s message, so you have to say what they tell you to say (even about your attacker) or get out.

Now, in the most activist judicial move I’ve seen in a long time, the Supreme Court dismissed the class action suit Dukes v. Wal-mart sending that same message to the women of Wal-mart by ruling that a class of 1.5 million plaintiffs was just too big for evidence of gender discrimination to be “common” to all of them — one of the basic requirements in a class action lawsuit. Few legal watchers, including this one, were surprised at that outcome. But digging deeper into the 5-4 opinion penned by Antonin “the Constitution doesn’t protect women against discrimination” Scalia, you’ll find that Scalia turned a procedural case into the latest substantive attack on women.

Scalia exercised his judicial activism, which he claims to hate when it comes to his right-wing sensibilities, and actually changed the standard for what potential class action plaintiffs have to show before they can make it to trial. Before yesterday, plaintiffs needed to allege certain common facts or issues among members of the class to get past the potential dismissal stage. Now, thanks to Justice Scalia, the ante has been upped and plaintiffs must actually prove a common harm, not just allege facts that would support it, before they can move past the pleading stage. Scalia’s opinion addressed the procedural questions it had to and then swiftly and deftly in just a few pages, made it clear, yet again, that blind justice isn’t blind at all and, apparently, is on the side of big corporate political donors and the United States Chamber of Commerce.

Of course, not wanting to disappoint, Scalia took it even further in an amazingly laughable paragraph, claiming that there were no facts under which the women of Wal-mart could have been discriminated against in the first place because Wal-mart had a written policy banning gender discrimination:

“… [managers] left to their own devices in any corporation — and surely most managers in a corporation that forbids sex discrimination — would select sex-neutral, performance-based criteria for hiring and promotion that produce no actionable disparity at all.”

Let me know when you’re done rolling on the floor laughing. See what happens to one’s view of the real world when you’re holed up in those judicial ivory towers for so long? Soon, the facts of real life play no part in judicial rulings that impact, oh, pretty much everyone’s real lives.

In the dissent, the three women justices — Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan — were joined by Justice Stephen Breyer in pointing out all the legal flaws and holes in Scalia’s opinion. I had held out some hope that that the female bloc of justices would prevail on their male colleagues, as Ginsberg did in the strip search case of a middle school girl a few years ago, that a male-oriented lens doesn’t always provide the most accurate view of the facts before them. Or that an “official” corporate policy against gender discrimination doesn’t mean that discriminatory practices aren’t being allowed — or encouraged — to happen. Ginsberg recounted in her dissenting opinion, as she has in the past, that one of the best examples of how gender issues play out even when there is an anti-discrimination policy involved a case about symphony orchestra hiring practices. Orchestras didn’t think they were discriminating against women musicians until they were required to hold all auditions with candidates behind a screen. And guess what — more women were hired because they could only be judged by their performance and not any other factors, like gender.

Long-held, and faulty, societal views that men are more reliable, that women will quit a job when they have babies, that once women have children they’re not as committed as men, and that men are the chief support of families so they should get paid more, enable men who still run the show in corporate America to keep practices in place that allow them to be surrounded by others like them. And those things, my friends, are often impossible to prove. Look how long it took Lilly Ledbetter to show she had been discriminated against. But that’s what the Supreme Court majority, Wal-mart and the corporate world want — to deal with these issues on a case by case basis because they know that few employees can afford to hire an attorney on their own meager salaries to fight an employer or a corporate giant for what’s right.

Those in the politically conservative world will pound the drum claiming this was merely a procedural case and direct attention to the portion of the Wal-mart decision that was unanimous, which only addressed whether the plaintiffs had plead their case correctly on damages. The 5-4 decision that is at the heart of this national employment crisis is the over-stepping of the right wing of the court to stretch a procedural case to change substantive law in a way that adversely impacts today’s majority of breadwinners — women.

I’ve never been a believer in reincarnation, but today I’ve got my fingers crossed that, if it exists, Scalia and the others in the Wal-mart majority come back in their next lives as Wal-mart women. Now that would be justice.

]]>http://www.punditmom.com/2011/06/supreme-court-tells-women-to-shut-up-and-go-home-again/feed5Five Things This Feminist Mom is Grateful for on Mother’s Day — A Reprisehttp://www.punditmom.com/2011/05/five-things-this-feminist-mom-is-grateful-for-on-mothers-day-a-reprise
http://www.punditmom.com/2011/05/five-things-this-feminist-mom-is-grateful-for-on-mothers-day-a-reprise#commentsSun, 08 May 2011 11:00:25 +0000http://www.punditmom.com/?p=7672This one was one of my favorites from last year. So I figured — if it was good enough for Mother’s Day 2010, it should still be good for 2011!

Sure, I get to leave the dishes in the sink …

]]>This one was one of my favorites from last year. So I figured — if it was good enough for Mother’s Day 2010, it should still be good for 2011!

Sure, I get to leave the dishes in the sink and the dirty laundry in the hamper today. And it’s great that “some people” (you know who you are!) are going to make me dinner tonight, but on the tenth anniversary of being able to celebrate Mother’s Day as a mother myself, I’ve been thinking of some things about babies and children and motherhood for which I am eternally grateful:

1. The Pill. It’s the 50th anniversary of this amazing medical feat and, in many ways, my life as it is today is a direct result of that miracle. Yes, I think The Pill was a miracle. For me, it wasn’t about being a wild teen or crazy college co-ed who was sowing wild oats and didn’t want to be bothered with responsibility. Ask anyone who knew me in my teen years and they would roll on the floor laughing (their A’s off) at the thought that my name would be used in a sentence with either the word “wild” or “crazy.” Unless I was talking about Steve Martin. But I digress.

The word “dating” didn’t get a lot of use when it came to describing my life then, either. But I did start dating in college and, though I don’t know how I’m ever going to explain this to PunditGirl, I got married the first time when I was 19. Not a good choice for many reasons. But I am thankful every day that in that short, two-year marriage I did not get pregnant. If I’d had a baby at that point in my life, I can only imagine how much harder it would have been to get out of a truly bad situation and what that would have meant for my life — and my child’s life going forward.

2. Roe v. Wade. I came of age in the era just after the Supreme Court ruled that women had a Constitutional right to have an abortion. Don’t think that I wasn’t also grateful for that knowledge every day during my first marriage, even when I was on The Pill, that if I had still gotten pregnant (hey, no birth control works 100 percent of the time), that I had the right not to bring a child into the world when I was in the midst of an abusive relationship. Today, as a woman of a certain age (as I was called recently on Twitter!) looking back, I’m not sure if I ever would have exercised my right to end a pregnancy, but I certainly felt much more in control of my destiny knowing that I had that right.

3. The Women of Newsweek (and so many like them). When some brave, young women filed a gender discrimination lawsuit against Newsweek for not allowing women to be reporters, I was an impressionable 12-year-old (not so much older than PunditGirl is now. YIKES!) I was reminded about their brave act recently when I was asked to moderate a panel with some current Newsweek journalists who wrote about that lawsuit. Without those “women’s libbers” forging the way for me while I was still pondering pre-algebra and just how long I was going to have to wear those darn braces (trust me, they weren’t the fashion statement then as they are today), my ability to major in political science and dream of taking over Tom Brokaw’s job one day wouldn’t even have been on the table. While not directly related to motherhood, their desire for professional lives and their commitment to fight for that was all the proof I needed that it was okay to think about motherhood later. Which was a very good thing for me.

4. Women online. My sisters on Twitter, Facebook, personal blogs and group blogs were there for me after I became what CNN recently called an “older mother.” Being in the ‘burbs with a baby, I felt pretty alone. I’d been in the workplace for over 20 years as a reporter then as a lawyer before I became PunditGirl’s mom. Most of the women I knew were still in the office 60 hours a week. I found myself without a job shortly after we returned from China with our new daughter and I didn’t know any other moms of young children. And I was woefully unschooled then in the ways of play groups and Gymboree. When I started my mom journey, I was unprepared for a lot of things and there were plenty of times when I wished that there was a Xanax in the house, especially when our three-year-old screamed with night terrors and I was afraid someone would hear her and call the police, thinking that only a child who was being beaten could make noises like that.

Thank goodness for the wonderful, amazing women I’ve met online who became my lifeline. All of a sudden, just by reading their stories, I knew I wasn’t the only one. And then I met some. And then I met some more. And they became my friends and they helped me in many ways. (I purposely left out site links to my amazing sisters in social media because inevitably I would have forgotten someone and would not want to hurt anyone’s feelings, especially on Mother’s Day).

Aside from being grateful for these things, I will continue to fight to keep access to effective birth control, abortion and equal pay for equal work so that one ten-year-old girl I know won’t have to worry about them quite as much as I did. I’m hoping she’ll find her own way in the world of women and friendship!

5. And, of course, last, but not least, I’m grateful for “some people.”

One day last summer, Hollee pulled out of an Ohio campground, excited to be on her way to Chicago.

She’d been enjoying a family reunion at Lake Hope State Park, but she was ready for a bug-free wireless connection and some quality urban time with Becky. The ride took longer than the 1 hour and 27 minutes promised, but Hollee had given herself plenty of time. She parked in the extended lot and shuttled her way to the gate.

That’s when she punched in her confirmation code and got this message: “Sorry, but you can’t check in until 24 hours before your flight.” She knew she was early, but she thought it was more like two hours. Turns out that she’d driven to the airport on the wrong day.

When she returned to camp — having soothed her embarrassment with a stop at Starbucks — her eight-year-old son greeted her with a bear hug.

“Can you believe I made such a big mistake?” Hollee asked him.

That was her redemption moment. The chance to show Gideon that it’s OK to screw up.

When we aim for perfection as parents, we do our children — and ourselves — a disservice. It’s not good for them, and it’s not good for us. And, yet, ours is a generation that often treats motherhood like a competitive sport — aiming to be perfect moms who create perfect children.

In fact, the respondents who took a “good enough” approach at work and home were more likely to be satisfied with their choices, less likely to feel they’d sacrificed too much, and less likely to describe their marriages as a “disaster” or “not very good.” And — this is the best part — they’d given up surprisingly little professional ground to achieve this state of contentment. These women hadn’t settled for second best — they’d simply stopped beating themselves up and scrambling to meet other people’s definitions of success.

We do not need to be perfect to be successful.And nor do our children.

Ellen Galinsky, the president and co-founder of the Families and Work Institute and the author of Mind in the Making, makes a good point about this. When we model perfection, she told us, we teach our kids a heartbreaking and dangerous lesson: Mistakes are unacceptable.

Children who wither when confronted with challenges view their abilities as fixed — once they fall short, it’s very hard for them to rebound. On the other hand, kids who develop a “growth” mindset believe they can improve (in ability and intelligence) over time and with practice. They view new challenges as fun and exciting.

So when Gideon asked Hollee last summer whether the airport mix-up was her first mistake (insert laughter here), she reminded him of several others and told him how she’d overcome them.

She laughed about her three-hour detour through the woods and back and talked about the upside: The Temple family got to spend the rest of the evening together and Hollee brought back some Silly Bandz. And when she headed back to the airport the next day, she felt like he was a step closer to that growth mindset she’s trying to foster.

Which, as far as we’re concerned, is perfect.

You can read more Mothers of Intention voices in just a few weeks, and you won’t need a computer to do it!

]]>http://www.punditmom.com/2011/04/mothers-of-intention-why-perfectionist-parenting-is-anything-but-perfect/feed4Can the Women of the Supreme Court Help the Women of Wal-Mart?http://www.punditmom.com/2011/03/can-the-women-of-the-supreme-court-help-the-women-of-wal-mart
http://www.punditmom.com/2011/03/can-the-women-of-the-supreme-court-help-the-women-of-wal-mart#commentsWed, 30 Mar 2011 15:59:47 +0000http://www.punditmom.com/?p=7250A couple of months ago, I wondered what would happen for about 1.5 million women when the Supreme Court got its hands on the class-action, gender-discrimination lawsuit against corporate giant Wal-Mart. That’s the approximate number of plaintiffs in the case …]]>A couple of months ago, I wondered what would happen for about 1.5 million women when the Supreme Court got its hands on the class-action, gender-discrimination lawsuit against corporate giant Wal-Mart. That’s the approximate number of plaintiffs in the case who have alleged they’ve been victims of institutional efforts by Wal-mart to promote men over women and systematically pay women less than men for decades.

Technically, the only issue to be determined by the Supreme Court is whether a class of plaintiffs can be this big. That’s some good, wonky procedural stuff for recovering lawyers like me! But as SCOTUS watchers know, that fact that a relatively narrow question is before them hasn’t always stopped the the highest court in the land from crafting decisions that go beyond the stated issue, so the question of gender discrimination is likely to have an impact on the final outcome.

And that’s where the personal experiences of Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan come in — three women who, undoubtedly, have experienced gender discrimination in their professional lives and can use that lens through which to persuade the testosterone side of the bench to see things differently.

“They have never been a 13-year-old girl . . . It’s a very sensitive age for a girl. I didn’t think that my colleagues, some of them, quite understood.”

When it comes to the upcoming Wal-Mart case, it’s probably safe to say that the men on the Supreme Court can’t quite understand the subtle realities of gender discrimination in the workplace because they’ve never been a target, though I’d be interested in hearing what their wives and daughters have to say about their experiences. But Ginsburg has been very open about her experiences having to hide her pregnancies for fear losing her job. While Justices Sotomayor and Kagan have been more circumspect about how the legacy of gender discrimination may have impacted their careers, there’s no question that having three women on the Supreme Court for the first time ever will play a significant role in the behind-the-scenes judicial discussions that take place on the Wal-mart case, just as having an outraged Ginsburg did for Savana Redding.

Reports of the oral arguments indicate that even the women justices have concerns about how to manage this case as a class action. But the menfolk asked questions suggesting that maybe the merits of the case should just be viewed through the lens of a few “bad apples.” After all, one justice said, even if Wal-mart has policies against gender discrimination in place, that doesn’t mean a handful of supervisors won’t discriminate from time to time.

Except that was the argument that the world of symphony orchestras made when women musicians contended they were being discriminated against in favor of men. Those doing the hiring said, “NONSENSE! We’re merely applying the same criteria to everyone and you ladies are falling short.” Then, women were successful in advocating for “blind” auditions – those hiring musicians would not be able to see the performer while they played and would only be able to assess the applicant on the music they heard. And you know what happened? Increasing numbers of women were hired and those making the decisions were shocked that they were, whether on purpose or not, favoring the men applicants. Their purportedly objective standards were tainted by subjective attitudes.

We all know how that goes in the real world.

Since we know that the uber-conservatives on the court have taken liberties in the recent past about broadening the legal questions to be addressed, it would come as no surprise if any opinion issued also tries to slap down existing law on gender discrimination suits. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the three women justices can at least keep any decisions focused on the procedural question about whether a class of plaintiffs can be this big — whether they can, in fact, share the common injuries and similar situations that are required to meet the test. Because then we can move on to the real issue — how to explain away the facts that women, as a general matter, get paid less and promoted less than the men of Wal-mart.

]]>http://www.punditmom.com/2011/03/one-day-for-women-id-say-we-need-all-365/feed1Women are the Real Losers in Wisconsin’s Labor Fighthttp://www.punditmom.com/2011/03/women-are-the-real-losers-in-wisconsins-labor-fight
http://www.punditmom.com/2011/03/women-are-the-real-losers-in-wisconsins-labor-fight#commentsThu, 03 Mar 2011 14:09:58 +0000http://www.punditmom.com/?p=7119I don’t want to see a conspiracy where there isn’t one, but as some politicians push to cut reproductive and economic rights for women, it’s hard not to view other efforts that would disproportionately impact women through that same …]]>I don’t want to see a conspiracy where there isn’t one, but as some politicians push to cut reproductive and economic rights for women, it’s hard not to view other efforts that would disproportionately impact women through that same lens of attack.

When those statistics are viewed in conjunction with Walker’s statements that Wisconsin union members who are police and firefighters — professions that are still heavilymale-dominated — would be exempt from his plan, it seems clear that efforts to cut union wages and benefits, as well as collective bargaining rights, would put women at the back of the economic line more so than men.

So what happens next? That’s what I’m pondering today over at Politics Daily.